Our Great Gautrain Adventure

I took Aaron on the Gautrain for our first time on Sunday. My brother was up in Joburg for our mom’s birthday on Saturday and instead of driving out to the airport, I suggested we take the Gautrain instead. It was a perfect opportunity to take Aaron for his first ride on the train (mine too) and see my brother off at the same time. Aaron was a little nervous when the train first pulled off and drove through a tunnel coming out of Sandton but he started to enjoy the experience once he climbed on to my lap.

The train travels through two stations between the Sandton Station and the O R Tambo station. If you are travelling to the airport, the doors to the airport cars don’t open. The ride there was apparently about 12 minutes as advertised and about 15 minutes from the airport to Sandton. Its a pretty smooth ride and definitely worth the R100 each way to avoid traffic, parking and the inevitable rush to check in.

I’d like to explore the Gautrain bus system next. I don’t see route maps on the Gautrain site but the buses are appealing if they go to the sorts of places we tend to frequent in major centres like Rosebank, Fourways and Randburg. At the moment the buses don’t run on weekends (heck, the whole system is pretty limited at the moment) but a more developed public transit system would be heavenly in an increasingly congested city.